Cycling: Elinor Barker looking for world domination

CARDIFF cycling sensation Elinor Barker is determined to seize her big opportunity as she aims for world domination this week.

CARDIFF cycling sensation Elinor Barker is determined to seize her big opportunity as she aims for world domination this week.

Barker has replaced Joanna Rowsell in the British women’s team pursuit squad at the Track World Championships in Minsk which start tomorrow.

The 18-year-old from Cardiff will join Laura Trott and Dani King in the Belarusian capital as Great Britain’s London Olympic champions look to win their fifth world title in six years. Rowsell is taking a break from the track in order to focus on road racing and her absence has opened the door for Barker to ride with the team for only the second time, three months after her debut at the Track World Cup in Glasgow in November.

But with the event set to be expanded from three riders racing over 3km to four riders over 4km after the world championships, a spare place in the line-up will become permanently available.

Barker is keen to make it hers with a strong showing in Minsk.

“Jo is an amazing rider, so I am sad to see her go, but then it does give me a big opportunity,” said Barker, the world junior road race time trial champion. “I’m definitely putting myself under pressure. If I am going to do it I might as well aim high and do the very best I can rather than coasting through.”

Barker is one of four Welsh riders in the Great Britain squad alongside sprinter Becky James and men’s endurance duo Owain Doull and Sam Harrison.

Barker’s only other experience of world championship competition was as a junior and she had not been expecting to move up to the senior ranks until 2014.

Rowsell stepping temporarily aside has brought that forward and Barker admits to feeling anxious about continuing the standard that saw the team achieve a world and Olympic double last year.

“The expectation when you race for GB is to win, especially if you are in the women’s team pursuit, so it is a big slot to fill,” she added.

“I have been to world championships before, but as a senior it is a big step up. Before Glasgow, this felt out of reach, being part of the team for this worlds.

“Next year’s worlds was my goal, but then after Glasgow, I thought ‘Yeah, I think I can do this’.”

Barker has had just a matter of weeks to acclimatise to riding alongside Trott and King, with a short spell in the run-up to the Glasgow world cup being followed up with another brief stint ahead of Minsk. However, she has been warmly welcomed by her more celebrated team-mates and now feels fully integrated into the group.

“The first time I rode with them was about two weeks before Glasgow,” she explained. “I was so nervous, but it got better as the week went on.

“They were really nice and really welcoming so, I felt part of the team. If you over think it, they have got Olympic medals, world titles, they could have this air about them, but they don’t and they are really easy to get on with, so that made it a lot easier to gel into the team.”

Barker’s progression to the senior world championships has been made all the more remarkable by the fact she is still at sixth form.

However, she has to fit in studying biology and PE around commitments on the bike and confessed her grades have suffered as a consequence of her rise up the British Cycling ladder.

“It’s pretty hard,” she admitted. “I feel like this year I have pretty much taught myself. So far in 2013, because of the snow, I have had I have two days in school, which is not really ideal.

“My grades are slipping a little bit, but I am trying my hardest to keep them up there, as well as doing my best in cycling.”

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